3 Deepfake Impersonation Schemes Cybercriminals Love—and How RPost Stops Them

Falling Prey or Praying Not to Fall Prey. Or, Praying for Man City’s Rodri or Chelsea?

I was over in London for the International Legal Technology Association Europe conference and could not help fixating on not only the cybercriminal tactics targeting law firms (and all firms for that matter) but also the Premier League “Football”.

More on football (soccer as we armadillo call it in Texas) in a minute. But first, more on praying not to fall prey to cybercriminals… Especially since Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the season of heightened cybercriminal activity (due to short staffing of tech executives from now through early January).

One of the sessions at the conference really resonated, in terms of discussing the history – the founding fathers of today’s cybercrime being the Black Axe gang from Nigeria -- and state of the art of today’s cybercriminal tactics.

They are so tricky these days, that one of my armadillo relatives recently was tricked into sending money through a “Facebook lock-out Zelle payment scheme”. While I can explain this in more detail if interested, the loss was real money, but not in the scope of the business losses from more sophisticated business email compromise, date exfiltration for ransom and ransomware targeting.

Bottom line, the sophistication of these cybercriminal tactics is such that today it is about praying that you will not fall prey to these schemes. Being a little armadillo, I pray that I will not fall prey to many predators; but I feel more comfort when I can eat lots of calcium to strengthen my armadillo armor as well. 

Pray plus take pre-emptive actions.

Here are three cybercriminal impersonation themes powered up with face-swapping and voice-swapping deep fake technology that we’ve written about recently --- AND that RPost technology armor can thwart through pre-emptive measures. I strongly recommend reading or reviewing these linked resources.

1. Staffing Impersonation by North Korean, Chinese, and Russian cybercriminal gangs leading to data exfiltration for ransom and ransomware, or other situations. These are quite sophisticated and are ubiquitous in large companies that have remote workers. Read more here.
2. Multi-Party Lawyer or Advisor Impersonation leading to a legal settlement, transaction payment, real estate, or wealth management investment funding being re-directed to cybercriminal accounts. These are a favorite of the Nigerian, South African, and Russian cybercriminal cabals; at least from what we see. Watch webinar here.
3. Supplier Impersonation leading to BEC type of scheme with payment being re-directed to cybercriminal accounts. These were inspired by the Black Axe mafia-style gang. Watch webinar here.

Now, if you’ve fallen prey to these or know someone who has, you may feel you’ve been cursed.

Premier league football (soccer) is big business these days. I can tell you that if you have mis-sent $100K or $1 million, you’ll feel cursed; but you will not feel as bad as Manchester City fans feel today about a seemingly recent game performance curse 😉.

Since the Ballon d’Or was awarded to Man City’s Rodri, things have only gone downhill. Already in a tough position without Rodri who tore his ACL in September against Arsenal, Man City have now lost 5 consecutive games and are not looking the same. The Man City downfall could have already started. They have had many worries like the number of goals they have conceded in those 5 games, number of goals scored, and losing their star player for the season. But those aren't even the biggest problems. The biggest problem is that they lost to Tottenham in 2 of the 5 games. Now Tottenham is a decent team, but they never compete with the big teams and always fail in the important moments (in my humble armadillo opinion).

Manchester City have most likely lost out on winning the league, unless they pray for a miracle and that miracle happens. While still in second, but miles behind Liverpool, if they don’t fix their problems, they will just dig a bigger hole for themselves. Manchester City are NOT playing how they usually play, and they will struggle if they can’t find a Rodri replacement.

On the other hand, all my armadillo praying for Chelsea seems to be paying off (for them). Chelsea, of late, have impressed everyone. They are in the third place after 12 games and their only losses coming from Liverpool and Man City. They have looked unstoppable in both the Conference League and Premier League, showing promising signs that they will bring a trophy back soon. They have so much squad depth, it's actually crazy to see. Having a starting 11 for the Premier League which has managed to get them in third place so far; and then a couple days later having a whole new starting 11 bringing first place so far in the Conference League.

Chelsea isn’t even solely relying on their star players like Cole Palmer this season as much as they did last year. They have so many players that have stepped up like Levi Colwill, Moises Caicedo, and Nicholas Jackson. These three players have been key for Chelsea this season and are the reason why Chelsea are doing so well in the Premier League. All three players have jumped up massively in their performances and have shown their worth in this Chelsea team. Now in the Conference League squad, Nkunku and Joao Felix have shown how valuable they are as they manage to get a goal or assist in every game they play. Nkunku is Chelsea’s leading goal scorer with 10 goals this season, even though he only starts in the Conference League.
 
While my armadillo praying may have paid off for Chelsea Football Club, I do not recommend on praying alone to avoid falling prey to cybercriminal schemes. Praying WITH the RPost PRE-Crime suite of cybersecurity services is a much better way to protect the continuity of your business operations in light of today’s ransomware and other proliferating crimes.

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